Beacon Street Diary

Archives: May 2017

The Congregational Library & Archives will be closed on Monday, May 29th in observance of Memorial Day.

All of our online resources will be available as usual. If you have questions for the staff, please send an email or leave a voicemail, and we'll get back to you when we return to the office on Tuesday.

Don't miss this exploration of early American religious song, illustrated with live performances. Reserve your seat today.

From William Billings to Lowell Mason

Join choral ensemble Norumbega Harmony for a noontime concert exploring the musical and cultural transformation of Congregational sacred music from the Revolutionary Era's stark psalm tunes and lively fuging tunes, pioneered by William Billings of Boston (1746-1800), to the European Romantic melodies and harmonies of the city's great music educator and church composer Lowell Mason (1792-1872).

As an archivist, I will occasionally make site visits for potential new collections. While chances are good that I will be the one to eventually organize the records, there's no guarantee that the work will divide that way, with intern projects and more than one archivist on staff. However, when I went to Connecticut to visit the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree about two years ago, I hoped that I would be the one who would organize her records. The reason why I felt so strongly about this collection is that it represents a side of our collection that I'm always eager to expand upon: that of recent history and a continuation of lesser heard voices. Rev. Crabtree has spent her life and career championing feminism and striving to even the playing field. She attended college during the height of the cultural movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A self-described trouble-maker who questioned authority and the status-quo, Crabtree became a member of the United Church of Christ's Executive Council by the age of 27.

As a campus minister, she saw a need for a women's center and helped co-found and lead the Prudence Crandall Center for Women in New Britain, Connecticut in the mid-1970s. She served at Colchester's Federated Church before tackling Conference Minister for the UCC's Southern California and then returned to serve in her home state of Connecticut as Conference Minister until she retired in 2010. Researchers interested in studying the cultural shifts of the 1960s and 70s, who wish to explore women's roles as leaders within the United Church of Christ, will want to come visit and spend some time with this collection. Crabtree is a prolific writer who maintained and donated the personal writings that delve into reactions to the current events of the day that are so often never spoken of or expunged from earlier generations' work.